Me 2.0

It seems that this is now a time for endings and also new beginnings. How fitting these life changes are coinciding with the change in the decade, change in the year, change in the season. So I find myself in boxes, packing, stuffing, sifting through the evidence of my existence, my accumulations and collections of assorted things. I have tried not to pause over each item, remembering where, with whom and why I purchased each thing, or received as gift, or inherited from some dead person can be time consuming, painful, jubilant, tedious and tiring. Each thing has a memory attached, a story to be told, a reason behind it, and the summation of those stories does not amount to the life that I am now packing up and putting away. I have invested so much in things, foregoing relationships with people for a life of stuff. And now I have to drive my stuff across Texas to get to my new home. Over consumer - that is what my shrink called me - and I thought I was a minimalist. But as I wrapped the 20th ramekin into newsprint, and bundled up the 15th spatula I began to realize that I have bought myself into happiness, or at least attempted to. The house we have rented in Decatur has 4 bedrooms to the three I have here in Glendale, one more room to fill up, furnish and buy things for. I stood in my kitchen packing and talking to a friend who had come by to hug me before I left. She told me about some hard times she was going through and told me that it was just "her story" her version of the truth. So I started to think about my version of my story and how as I pack my things into the truck to leave I can re-write my story. The version of me in Georgia doesn't have to be this me. It could be Me 2.0 with updates to come. I know the old adage, "wherever you go, there you are" and also know that there is no geographic solution to the problem of me, but maybe, as I drive the 2,200 miles to my new home I can leave some of the old story behind, throw the evidence out the window on the slow pursuit to my new destiny. If I am the master of my own fate then really, all I have to do is introduce myself as Me 2.0 and tell a different story when I introduce myself. I might be bringing boxes with me, but I think I can leave some of the baggage behind.